Tag Archives: Gay marriage

So what exactly is this “gay agenda” I keep hearing about? Right wing groups claim that gays are trying to shove their gay agendas down straight people’s throats. (I thought gays preferred to shove something else down throats, but no matter.)

As a devout Christian, I have a few questions about this so-called gay agenda.

Is a gay agenda like a business plan that gays have to draft and get approved before they can “choose” a gay lifestyle? Continue reading →

Elton John and David Furnish–why shouldn’t they be allowed to get married?

I believe in love, it’s all we got

Love has no boundaries, costs nothing to touch

Churches and dictators, politics and papers

Everything crumbles sooner or later

But love, I believe in love

“Believe,” lyrics by Bernie Taupin

(c) 1995 William A. Bong Limited

With the recent news from the U.S. Supreme Court about gay marriage, the religious right has come out in full force to condemn it.

I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. If people would just listen to me, we could put this issue to bed once and for all.

Christians who oppose gay marriage often quote scripture from the Bible in support of their position. Simply put, it “offends God”:

Whenever one violates the natural moral order established by God, one sins and offends God. Same-sex “marriage” does just this. Accordingly, anyone who professes to love God must be opposed to it.

Marriage is not the creature of any State. Rather, it was established by God in Paradise for our first parents, Adam and Eve. As we read in the Book of Genesis: “God created man in His image; in the Divine image he created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” (Gen. 1:28-29)– Excerpt from “10 Reasons why Homosexual Marriage is Harmful and Must be opposed.”Ok then, if you are going to follow—and seek to enforce– the Bible’s commands, then you have to follow all of the Bible’s commands. You don’t get to pick and choose the ones you want to enforce, and ignore the ones you would rather weren’t in the Bible.

Therefore, if gay marriage “violates the natural moral order established by God,” then so does divorce:

By law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. Romans 7:2-3

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Luke 16:18

How many of the people who are against gay marriage are also against divorce? An even better question—how many of them ARE divorced? Why is divorce ok but gay marriage is not?

Here’s my take on all of this. The Bible must be read in the context of its times, economic, social and scientific. It was written before the age of scientific discovery. So to explain things like how the world got started, we have the story in Genesis. Was the earth really created in six days and then on the seventh God rested? Really? If God is all powerful, why did he need a day of rest anyway?

The Bible is full of parables, allegories and unscientific information that’s just plain wrong. I don’t think the Bible was ever meant to be a scientific treatise. Even Pope Francis agrees with this. He recently declared that evolution and the Big Bang theory are right and that God is not magician with a magic wand. Too bad fundamentalist Christians don’t listen to the Pope.

I can’t reconcile everything that’s in the Bible. I’m not a biblical scholar. But I am a Christian. As a Christian, I disagree vehemently that “anyone who loves God” must oppose gay marriage. I think it’s just the opposite. Anyone who loves God must not condemn gay marriage.

It’s the fundamental message that Jesus brought to the world that’s important, and that message is love, tolerance and respect for others: This is my command: Love each other. John 15:17.

That message has not changed. It remains as relevant today as it did back when the Bible was written. Maybe even more relevant.

The bottom line for me is this: If (and that is a big, qualified If) gay marriage offends God, then it is up to God, and only God, to judge.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37

Even Jesus said he was not the one to judge.

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. John 12:47

The rest of us should stop condemning others and endeavor to love even those with whom we don’t agree. In fact, those are the most important people to love and tolerate. As Jesus said, it’s easy to love your friends. But a true Christian must strive for more than that.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? . . but love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Luke 6:32, 35

I guess I should take a page out of my own book and forgive those who trespassed against me, shouldn’t I? I’m trying, I really am.

GOD HATES THE CONSTITUTION

They stand in front of churchesThey stand in front of crowdsThey carry signs that tell usGod’s message from the clouds

God hates the constitutionHe wants to pray in schoolsThe godly have solutionsThe rest of us are fools

I guess they have a private lineDirectly to the LordBut the line must have some staticPerhaps a faulty mother board?

When I read the BibleThe message there is loveAnd tolerance for everyone– That’s the dispatch from above

And if it is a sinWhatever they decryJesus said, before you judgeTake that log out of your eye.